Your bullies

I often wonder how life would have been different if my parents lived one street to the north or the south. Our street featured three kids: Me, my sister and my sister's lifelong best friend. When I was 7, a kid 15 months older than me moved in down the street and immediately became my best friend.

Meanwhile, the streets north and south of ours were teeming with kids our age. The kids to the north were almost all a year or so younger than me and the kids to the south were almost all in my grade. Of course, at 8 or 9 years old, one street may as well be half a continent away, so I absorbed my share of shit from those guys. We alternated between an uneasy detente (I had Intellivision, after all) and full-on sparring.

We got along better as we got older and my friend down the street ended up hanging out with some bad asses (though we remained friends and he always told me if I needed any "help" with the kids one street below to let him know and he'd take care of it) before he moved to Ohio after ninth grade. And one of the kids on the street below me ended up being one of my three or four best friends thru the first couple years of HS, when we began to grow apart a bit. Haven't seen any of those guys in a long time, but we exchanged hearty handshakes when our paths crossed at the downtown bar in the year or two following college graduation.

But who knows how things are different if we all lived on the same street? I always felt as if I was playing from behind throughout high school. It didn't help that I was shy with an awful haircut and big fucking glasses (that I very Very VERY rarely wore). But plenty of dorky kids had better street cred than me. I guess they grew up with other kids their age.

Ahh who am I kidding? I still would have been a dork with no idea how to operate the ol' equipment.

 

And my 4-foot-11 during my freshman year self would have been kicking your Night Ranger-listening ass EVERYDAY.

The only thing that would change? My wardrobe. One day I'd be pummeling you in an Ocean Pacific T-shirt, the next day, I'd be in my breakdancing troupe's (the B-Team Breakers) gear, the next in full Quiet Riot regalia.

Every shellacking would begin with me quoting Grave 45's Partytime.

Do you wanna party? It's party time!

 

BYH in high school.

 

Yeah? And when I destroyed your ass, I'd be singing "Rock In America."

YOU! (punch)

CAN! (punch)

STILL! (knee to the groin)

ROCK! (punch)

IN! (knee to the stomach)

AMERICA!!!! (one more knee to the groin and a kick in the ribs as you weep)

 

I had some dweeb a year ahead of me in high school who was the friend of another dick. One day in middle school, a substitute teacher was taking roll call and for some reason used my first and middle names (________ Ernest). I was named after my grandpa but all anyone hears when they hear my middle name is the Sesame Street character's name: Ernie.

The alpha dick was in the same class. Beta dick wasn't in the picture yet because he was in a different middle school. But the rest of the year was full of "How's Bert?" and shit like that. Then a year off when alpha dick was in high school while I finished out middle school.

The next year, alpha dick tells beta dick about the middle name and beta dick decides to jump on it. I guess alpha dick had had his fill because I never really heard from him again. I wasn't giving beta dick the satisfaction of reacting to his bullshit, which started to piss him off.

One day, beta dick decided that the torture needed to become physical. He tried to reach out and grab my hair in the hallway. I saw it coming and grabbed his wrist.

All I said was, "Stand in line with all the other asshole punks" while I was holding his wrist. And it wasn't like it was a power grip. All he said was "Fuck you, Ernie" and walked off. He never came by again.

"Ignore it and it will go away" = complete and total bullshit. Stand up to them, even if it's a total bluff, and they will be more likely to back off because you've just called their bluff.

 

I got into plenty of fights daily in this small, 99.9 percent white town that our family moved to when I was in middle school. Being the only minority in school (Mexican) I got called every name under the sun and was challenged to fights daily. Won some, lost some.

Once football came around, I got some revenge back in one-on-one tackling drills. Smack those hicks in the mouth with a hard tackle and they don't pick on you as much.

 

You're delusional. Did you read the part about me being in a breakdance group?

I'd headspin my way right out of your girl slaps, worm my way into a fight pose perfected after multiple viewings of Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon, and beat you within in an inch of your life.

I breakdance and I'm from the street ... and it ain't Sentimental Street.

 

my first real bully was...Ayesha Wise. Yeah, a girl pretty much pushed me around for the majority of 4th grade (obviously, I wasn't allowed to hit a girl). It only stopped when my dad, God rest his soul, marched into her dad's barbershop and let him know if his daughter didn't lay off, that there would be consequences and repercussions.

 

Would you at least kick my ass to "Rhythm of the Night?"

 

Yep. Didn't figure that out 'til seventh grade. Of course, ditching my glasses for contacts, hitting a huge growth spurt for two straight summers (went from 5'3 in 6th grade to 5'5 in 7th to 5'10 in 8th) and gaining a shitload of confidence ... somehow got rid of a lot of bullies.

But those previous 4-5 years ... yeah. Not as much "success."

 

I think I'd have hit a girl before I got my dad involved, personally.

 

In junior high school years, there was a guy who I thought was put on this planet for the sole purpose of taking my money; at that time, maybe 50 cents or a buck at a time.
So one Saturday we're at a park getting ready for football practice. I've got a buck in my pocket for lunch later. I see this guy coming, he hasn't seen me yet. I grab another friend of mine and ask him to hold on to my money for me because that other guy would take it. He puts it in his sock and says, "This is where I keep mine because he always takes my money, too."

Couple of months later: I'm a drummer in the band, we have a concert in the auditorium. The drummers are in back, up on risers. At the end of the concert, I drop a stick and it lands perfectly on the crack where two risers come together and it drops through. I can't get it, so I tell the director and he says he'll get it when the risers are taken down. The stick had my name on it.
Next day, my tormenter comes up to me in the lunch area. Turns out the motherfucker was on stage crew. He has my drumstick and wants $5 for it. I finally reached my limit. I said, give it back or I'm telling the director. He won't. So I take off, heading for the bandroom to tell the director. I get about 30 feet away and my drumstick comes flying right past my head. He threw it at me. Luckily, he missed, that thing could have done some damage.
Incidentally, that was more than 40 years ago. About three years ago, I have reconnected with a friend from that era. We are driving to NoCal for a mini-reunion so we have a lot of time to talk. We're talking about people we knew growing up. I mention this incident. He says, "Shit, that guy was my next door neighbor. We were buds, but he ended trying to fuck me over, too. He was a real piece of shit."